Kent Beck, Three Rivers Institute

Kent Beck is widely recognized as the father of eXtreme Programming and JUnit. He is the Founder and Director of Three Rivers Institute (TRI).

His career has combined the practice of software development with reflection, innovation, and communication. His contributions to software development include patterns for software, the rediscovery of test-first programming, the xUnit family of developer testing tools, and Extreme Programming.

He currently divides his time between writing, programming, and coaching. Beck is the author/co-author of Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition, Contributing to Eclipse, Test-Driven Development: By Example, Planning Extreme Programming, The Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, and the JUnit Pocket Guide.

He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

Presentation: "Keynote:Trends in Agile Development"

Time:
Thursday 09:00 - 10:00

Location:
Fleming Room

Abstract: Agile development has become popular because it reinforces and takes advantages of trends in the larger world of business. I will describe how software development can become more effective and relevant through accountablity, transparency, and responsibility and how software developers can prepare for their role in such development.

Presentation: "Transparency: great leap forward or exposed artery"

Agile propagandists make great claims about the advantages of being
transparent about the state of their projects

They fill their walls with index cards and charts that expose their progress to anyone who might be wandering through the room. They have regular, intense feedback sessions where they make it clear to the stakeholders just how many things they need to fix. They claim that this how maturerelationships work and that "Honesty is the best policy".

But is this true? Many of us work in dysfunctional organisations where honesty is the best way to get cheated. Surely Transparency is just not pragmatic?